


You Know The Hero Died So What's The Movie For

by lilolilyrae



Category: Marvel, Men in Black (Movies), NCIS, Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Background Emmett Cullen/Rosalie Hale/others, Background Jethro Gibbs/Tony DiNozzo, Background Relationships, Crossover, Lverse, Minor Character(s), More minor fandoms, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26146705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilolilyrae/pseuds/lilolilyrae
Summary: Cate doesn't really talk about her past life. Emmett just happens to be easy to talk to.
Relationships: Abby Sciuto & Caitlin Todd, Caitlin Todd & Original Female Character(s), Ellie Bishop & Abby Sciuto, Emmett Cullen & Caitlin Todd, Emmett Cullen/Rosalie Hale
Kudos: 2
Collections: lverse





	1. Prologue - Years Later

**Author's Note:**

> Yes the title's from a Taylor Swift song! It was playing while I started to write the second chapter of this, and it does kind of fit :)
> 
> This story is very much AU in every way, dl;dr!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-08-28  
> This chapter is written in present tense, in future chapters I'll use past tense to indicate the past sequences the main character is talking about, and present tense in italics when it's back in the Now.

"Oy! Catie! Over here!" someone calls across the street. I wince, half-hoping he's talking to someone else, although that's a futile hope in the middle of rural Germany, anyway. I hate being called Catie.

Turning around and seeing Emmett Hale waving and grinning at me, it's impossible to be mad. I see other passerbies giving him funny looks- if it's because of his skin colour, the foreign language or simply because he's loud, I cannot tell.

Looking left and right- I keep forgetting what side of the road the cars are driving on in which European country, but the road is completely deserted anyways- I awkwardly cross the street. Emmett greets me with a bear-hug.

"Catherine! Fancy seeing you here, so far from home!" 

"And you" I mumble. "Where's Rose?"   
I probably should have asked what he was doing here first or something, but I stopped caring about running into Central people in the most outlandish of locations many years ago. As it is, I get the answer to the second question anyway.

"Made a friend with a local, my girl, that's why we're here!" Emmett explains. "They're there- somewhere, getting something, my German's abysmal so I didn't catch everything" he laughs, gesticulating in the direction of a house in the next backstreet. "I'm just people-watching while I wait for them to get back."

"A... Friend?"

"Hm? Oh, no, just a friend this time!" he laughs again. It's impossible not to like Emmett.

I blush. "I- sorry, I didn't mean to insinuate-"

"Naw, don't worry about it, we _have_ been known to take lovers, after all! But after Jeremy... Still too fresh, that." for the first time that day, a shadow hushs over his face.

Right. I had heard that something happened to 'their latest boy-toy', as Vicky had said. I guess I didn't think they'd care so much. Not that I thought they _didn't_ care about the people they were with, just- oh, I suppose I just didn't think about it. Too much on my own mind, even after a year-long hiatus of travelling to clear my thoughts.

"Is that Montoya? Masha Montoya?!?" Emmett's booming voice pulls me from my thoughts. 

I look up and only catch the back of a tiny woman disappearing into a café down the road. 

I nod. "She's called Cookie over here, though. Or 'Keks' in German."

"Cookie?" Emmett laughs again. "Cutesie name for such a deadly woman."

"She's from around here- grew up here, at least, I don't know where she's born. To the people here, she's just the kid who disappeared for a few years before moving back, probably to study or for a man... At best, they know she's a hacker, but they probably just think she's good with computers for a girl"

Not that I'm saying girls are any worse at computers than anyone else. I'm just guessing that these town people might be a bit behind on the feminism mindscape. Then again, maybe I'm judging too early. It's been known to happen.

"Oh wow..." Emmett mumbles, looking a little far away in his thoughts as he keeps staring at the door that closed behind Cookie. I've actually heard her use that nickname in Central, too, she's just not as adamant about not using her birthname as she probably was as a kid. I'm surprised he's so surprised.

"What?"

"Just thinking- you know, they don't know who she is- I wonder who might be known as someone entirely else somewhere!" of course, he has to chuckle at that, too. I wish I could be as happy a person as him.

"Well, she did disappear for several years. As long as you know what someone was up to their whole life..." 

Now his laughter rings loudly across the street. "So that leaves- what? Feli, maybe?"

"I thought Rosalie would be your first choice."

"Oh, but she's lived longer than me, so by your logic I can't know what she's been up to all her life, even if we haven't been apart much since we've met" he grins at me.

"Right- I guess." I mumble.

"And you? Ever not been a cop- or whatever it is exactly what you do?"

"I'm on vacation. And- well, not really. _I've_ always been _some_ kind of law enforcement..." 

"Classified?" he smiles so damn easily.

"Not really, at least not from Central. I just- I don't talk about it much." that much is the truth.

"Ah- well, do tell me to back off if I'm asking uncomfortable questions!"

"No, no- it's fine." I find that it really is. I want to tell him about my past. He's so positive all the time, I don't think he'd judge me for anything. Plus it's not like I have to hang around him or anything if it does get awkward.

"So- _not really_ a secret spy with a dozen identities?" he laughs at his own joke.

  
I cringe.   
"Not me, at least, but- this-" I gesture to my own face- "might be recognised as a russian assassin some places..." 

"Whoa, whoa!" he exclaims. "Recognized as in, you've a doubleganger, or-" 

"No, actually this face." I sigh. "I mean, she had some scars that I had them get rid of, but still... Anyway, I haven't always- this isn't exactly the face or body I was born with."

"Oh! Alright." at least I don't have to explain to him how soul- or brain-switches work. Not that the brain-switch-tech was all that methodologically sound when me and Yela- _Helix_ , I remind myself, she goes by Helix now- switched bodies. At this point, we've gotten so used to it, making any changes now would be more detrimental than helpful, or so Cleo says.

"So, how'd it come to that?" he asks, curious like a little boy.

"I- well." I know I'm stalling, but I decide to start with Yelena's story instead. "This body- her name was Yelena, Yelena Delova-"

"No way!" he booms. "Your body's a bloody black widow?!"

Now I have to laugh. I hadn't expected him to know much about the people from k4. It's been a while since I've gotten that reaction.

"I've heard about that! She got into trouble with like every mafia on the planet and disappeared off the face of the planet!"

"Well, her face stuck around for a bit" I think the joke fell flat and quickly continued: "She broke away from her organisation and started to tear down all the mafia structures she came across, making many enemies and few friends... Even meeting Central and how they could wipe her record clean, she just wanted to get away and start new, and I wanted to _stay_ , get back to my life, but couldn't with my own face..."

"What _had_ happened to you, then?" he asks, leaning against a lamppost. It's the first time I consciously notice that he is human right now. I didn't even know he and Rose changed back and forth like that. 

"It's a bit of a long story" I keep stalling.

He opens his mouth with a gentle smile, probably ready go give me an out, when his phone beeps. Looking down, he grins again.  
"Well, looks like I've got time- Rose got dragged into a discussion about interior design, don't even ask me how... How 'bout that Café down there? You don't have to tell me anything, we could just spy on what Montoya's up to here" he laughs.

"Sounds good" I mumble.

The Café was very nice- it actually looked half like a bar and half like a restaurant, but they served coffee and cake and we got window seats, so I didn't mind.

We didn't see Cookie anywhere, she must've been upstairs or went out the back, but Emmett didn't have a problem filling the silence with mindless conversation about the latest additions to Central as well as what the old E1 crew had been up to in the last years. I smiled and nodded at what I hoped were the correct places, but in my mind I was somewhere else entirely.

It probably _would_ be good to talk about it all, just once. I never went to therapy- I know I should, but every therapist would either not know a thing about the things I had gone through or it would be someone I knew personally, and I just didn't feel like doing that. Plus, it wasn't like I was badly traumatised or anything. Just a little- alright, I knew I needed help. I had hoped my sabbatical would help, but so far it had only made me even antsier. I was running away from my problems, not facing them.

"...and you haven't heard a word of what I've just said" he laughs, not even offended. "Maybe you'd rather do the talking?"

"...Maybe I would." I admit.

"So, what happened?"

I take a deep breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prologue end - let's get to the actual story :)  
> 


	2. Don't Worry, You're Still in the 'Early Life' of your Wikipedia Biography

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-08-28  
> I despise the fact that ao3 tries telling me it's still the 27th when it's almost 2am on the 28th here. Damn timezones! XD

_"What happened?" Emmett asks._

_So I tell him._

_And it's best to start this story right at the beginning._

I was born as Elizabeth Catherine in New Jersey on the 13th of June 1974. That much, I know from my birth certificate- the original, real one, not one of the many fakes I had been given throughout my life.

With my father dead, my mother fell in with a bad crowd, and I was put into witness protection in 1978. My foster family in Indiana soon loved me dearly, as I loved them. My foster parents accepted me as one of their own when my birth mother disappeared in the same year, even though they already had a daughter of their own- Rachel- and my new mother was pregnant again.

From then on, I was known to the world as one Caitlin Todd, daughter of Theo and Angelica. 

We still got the occasional visit from a federal agent to make sure that I was kept save, although it got less over the years. When my birth mother's body was found in 1990, they temporarily increased my security before they stopped it entirely. I was sixteen and didn't remember the woman enough to care about her death very much, although I felt bad for my lack of grief. She was my mother, surely I had to feel _something_ for her? 

"Who's they're saying are dead?" Max, the youngest, mumbled around a mouth full of pop tarts that were not the usual breakfast food but were permitted in such dire circumstances. 

"My mother" I said tonelessly.

Wide-eyed, he looked between me and our mother and back.

"Not her, silly" I said. "My birth mother. You don't know her." I barely know her, I thought.

"Oh, okay." he went back to eating. 

Our father scolded him for being tactless and asked whether I was alright. 

Whether I was alright. 

They kept asking that in the following months, as if I might break over losing a woman I had in reality already lost when I was in Kindergarten. 

In truth, I was more bothered that I didn't have the contact to the Secret Agents anymore. I looked up to them and had decided that it was exactly what I wanted to do in my own life. Whether it was to protect other orphaned children- or the president.

Eventually, I would do just that. But first, I had to finish my education. 

"Are you sure?" my father would ask before I went to college. "It's so far from here!" 

"Oh, let her go, Ted" my mother laughed. "She needs to spread her wings!" 

Rachel had stayed closer to home, going to community college and planning to work in a local store before she found a guy to marry.

As if that was inevitable. How had we ever been close as kids? We were so different, barely had anything to talk about that wouldn't bore the other to death, and while I would listen to her compare the merits and faults of the local boys her age, she rarely returned the favor when it came to me talking about college options and careers.

I didn't talk much to my parents, either, and the boys were just annoying children in my eyes. Even though I tried to see the positive things- everyone smiled when they were around, and they weren't the _worst_ troublemakers of the neighborhood- it was hard to connect with them.

Then again, I found it hard to connect with anyone these days. I barely talked to my parents in the last years of high-school, I didn't have any especially close friends and I didn't date. Sometimes, I felt incredibly lonely. 

The loneliness only got worse in college. 

I tried to be kind to everyone, to smile and listen and see the best in everyone, but no-one seemed interested in actually being friends with me.

I spent hours over my books in the library and more hours trying to figure out how exactly I would go about becoming a federal agent.

Because if anything, my loneliness had made me even more certain that it was the right career path for me. Everyone knew that secret agents didn't have functioning home lives, and I suspected the reality had even fewer happy endings for them than the movies did. I was perfect for it- I wanted to help people, was ready to give my life for it, and didn't have a personal life I could ruin in the process.

Of course, I had to ruin it at the first opportunity by trying to date a colleague. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment and I'll let you know when I upload the next chapter!


End file.
